Meant to make this my final post of the year, but I guess it’ll have to be my first instead! A look at part of a birg end-of-year tradition.

The Wis’Sachoi are a culture far to the west of the Twowi, where they exist fairly peacefully on the coast of a large inland sea. Come autumn the gifters (bachelors) herald the mating season by arriving to clans towns in bulky costumes made of sticks and reeds. They chase kids and animals, knock things over, and sing playfully that life away from the village has made them course and wild; won’t somebody please trim their shaggy hair and crooked claws? Young receivers (the ladies) don spiny cowls of woven branches in a cheeky imitation of the spiked armor worn by beast hunters of legend, to engage the “monsters” in games of song and wordplay. Should the beast court the wrong individual, or insult his quarry, or make too much mischief around the village, the elders are ready to chase him off with sticks. When a “beast” and “hunter” have successfully matched wits, the hunter will approach with beak scissors, so that she may snip away at the reeds covering her partner’s face in a tender gesture of allogrooming. Then her sisters and elders help tear away the rest of the costume, making the suitor fit to live among the clan again. The night ends with the burning of the reeds and a communal meal.

Courtship games such as this are just the first in a series of events held for around nine days, which include bachelors presenting gifts for the children and elders of the village, a fishing contest, and lots of feasting. Many of these gifts arrive in the form of exotic spices and other ingredients collected over the past year of trading abroad. Though it is tradition for courting pairs to consummate on the final night, it is not uncommon for a gifter to offer his spermatophore to several partners before the end of the festival period. After the final night concludes, Wis’Sachoi bachelors are granted the privilege of hibernating with their temporary in-laws.

As birgs generally sleep through the winter, fall and early-winter events such as these are the closest most cultures come to the sort of midwinter holidays observed on earth.

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For more worldbuilding (mostly creature) posts or to see what im up to on discord, I do have a patreon, where I post weekly!

I also have new stickers up on my kofi, or you can get prints of my art here, for those interested!

Just wanted to share the birg patch I embroidered on my hoodie! I feel like the fully completed photo dosent do it justice because some of the threads have swayed a bit since it’s been washed

Birdbug horror

Sometimes it useful to turn around, you never know if you are alone in the dark…

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Creatures created by @iguanodont

some of my favorite creatures

characters belong to @jayrockin @charseraph and @iguanodont

@iguanodont some birg stuff that I did

I think that putting a birg in bell-bottom jeans wasn’t the BEST idea what whatevs they’re slaying 💅

Also Roller skates :D

Another @iguanodont 's birgworld fanart.

A Birg climbing a mountain while a Cliffstriker watches... Where are they going...

A simple gouache practice this time with new techniques such as layering an underpaint before painting. Still need to tame this new brush...

this is Wooloob, a birg from @iguanodont's world. he is spectacularly boring and thus forever alone, despite being a good glassblower and handsomely foreign looking. his name was given to him by fairy godmother @dimetrodone and is no fault of mine

Hehe Birgworld oc

I finally attempted to draw a birg. I introduce Chik’Whi. They’re a weird, polite birdbug from a Puyok tribe. Their only friends are random bugs they find in the brush. They like to chat, but…as I said their only friends are bugs. 😔

The birdbugs and their world belong to @iguanodont

The modern clan seal dates back twelve reigning matriachs as a method of unifying the very heterogenous tradition of Twowic clan seals into a standardized format. Clans which integrated into the nascent twowi state under mostly voluntary circumstances were allowed to keep their original seals, though they are technically forbidden upon pain of death for treason to be used or displayed, these older clan seals are kept inside the compound reliquary and treated as a religious artifact collectively being all ancestors in lieu of their original symbolic embodiment of the clan. Newer and constructed clans never had the old style seals, while clans who put up a resistance had their clan seals destroyed, and populations split up.

Traditional pre-unification clan seals had a variety of shapes and formats, generally containing the name of the clan, their patron deity's sacred animal or the spiritual ancestor/primary livestock specialty of the clan, alongside more personal and esoteric symbology unique to their region or clan. These seals were carved into soft minerals like steatite and used to make impressions in clay, later felt-paper. As Twowi is a macroethnicity whose populations speak a wide range of related languages, older seals are written in dozens of languages with only a general system in common.

Components of the modern seal are 1- Clan Name 2- the imperial seal (this is a placeholder for the time being) in a more prestigious font than the clan name 3- patron deity of the clan 4- official day of founding, older clans always have their official founding date rewritten to be four years after the reign of the first Twowi Matriarch of Matriarchs; periphery clans maintain clandestine knowledge of their traditional founding dates, but more central ones lose that knowledge. The date is in purely numerical format, as opposed to the traditional method of fully writing it out, and by rendering all clans on paper younger than the heartland leadership cadre, it is another exercise of power. Likewise, all modern seals and clan documentation is mandated to be written in Twowi, the language of the heartland. This cultural primacy of Twowi is why the language family is referred to as Twowic, and the macroethnicity as Twowi. Hence the scholarly neglect of the more widely spoken first languages of Dwo'wî, Towiwi, and Ovē.

There's a movement in the heartland to test the extent of imperial influence by reducing clan patrons to a small, often abbreviated name next to the image of the Imperial Clan's patron. This has been... controversial.

Birgs and their home belong to my dear pal @iguanodont

Swooce!!! Wasn’t feeling very inspired w my aliens so I made a quick doodle of someone else’s instead!!!

(Ignore the fact she’s naked i am NOT going to attempt to draw birg clothes)

Swooce belongs to the talented @iguanodont btw!!!! Go check them out :)

The Flag Chase

Shown here is a late summer ritual carried out by the Ruruumi bachelor group: garbed in little more than a decorative collar, a young gifter climbs onto the back of a wild Ahoũitre, the Resplendent Flagdeer, to remove its brilliantly colored display feathers as a trophy to present during the nuptial gifting ceremonies in the fall. Using an obsidian knife, the cut must be clean enough to shed no more than a few drops of blood, without damaging the feathers, and performed without being hurled to the ground by the bucking animal. It is a sport requiring an impressive display of courage, agility, and control over one’s own trunkhorse, and for many kakroum bachelors, this and related high risk sports are a rite of status in their tightly knit brotherhoods. Many bachelor groups will specialize in ‘capturing’ a specific animal, though flagdeer are exceptionally prized for their feathers, which adorn the regalia of many clan residents. It is a feat that frequently ends in serious injury or death, but something that only a frivolous gifter can afford to perform, free from the responsibility of maintaining a village. In the process, he proves in himself the sort of strength and cleverness that any would-be mother would wish to see in her own daughters.

As for the flagdeer, it will be released after having been separated from its feathers. Though its wounds are relatively minor, it will have no hope of impressing its own kind in the coming mating season. Flag removal is a strategy employed by sparring male flagdeer as well, which will attempt to mangle or nip off the other’s display feathers to oust the competition. If the damage is minor, the flags will regrow the following year, but the cut made a birg’s knife frequently takes the entire “hand” of the appendage, preventing a complete regeneration.

Milder imitations of this sport are practiced by both children and adults. One common variant involves two teams, each defending am urwuzhu (mid-sized livestock) with a ribbon or flag tied to some part of its body. The opposing teams attempt to remove the flag from each other’s animal and carry it back to their section of the village. Such games can become immensely rowdy and still result in a lot of bruises, scrapes, and animal bites. Twowi children play a similar game, but wanting for a farm animal will chase after a fellow birg’s tail tassels instead.

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Hey guys welcome to my fucked up creatures and deranged ramblings blog

PLEASE? TELL ME WHAT YOU DO IN SPECULATIVE BIOLOGY? THAT SOUNDS REALLY COOL???

WHERE DO I EVEN START???

Okay I know. Some general information about the subject first:

Its a genre.

Before speculative biology comes speculative evolution, a more known subject that is basically a whole genre of books, projects, and is more spread then speculative biology because it is less specific. You would find plenty of speculative evolution projects.

They are very similar in a lot of ways and I think the difference is that speculative evolution 'documents' the journey (the evolution) of a creature or a multitude of creatures throughout a time-line of events that may or my not effect its form, while speculative biology is more focused on a single time period or just one creature or maybe a made up culture or an entire planet at a certain point in said journey, and digs deep.

A good example would be birgworld by @iguanodont and alien whale documentary which I definitely recommend checking out if you like the subject and a couple I forgot the name of currently ':]

Whe i say digs deep, I mean it could be as vast as from the building bloks of DNA (like carbon and nitrogen for us) to the politics and cultural plays. Tradition, religion, culture, history, language, psychology, and of course, biology. From general physiology to the way they reproduce and raise their young if at all.

This genre is usually categorized as sci-fi (not in all cases, but then it would be seen less as speculative biology and more just world building, an example would be monstergarden on YouTube) even though its word building because most of the creatures 'documented' are made up aliens and the projects themselves are closely tied to science.

Everything has an explanation in speculative biology and it goes into detail.

Actually a couple of my personal projects are categorized as speculative biology since in them I put my imagination to use and explore alien creatures and their identity.

Being my autistic self everything is thought out to the miniscule detail of how my aliens farm their equivalent of potatoes to what is their social structure and the different things I listed prior. Consider it my special interest.

To this date, I have at least drawn a picture of 10 different intelligent alien species (not including animals or other life forms from same planets, not even different life stages that may be in one species) all seen in a single time period on their respective planets.

Speculative biology also often features in it the planet itself and the solar system it belongs to since one is heavily effected by the other.

I am planning on posting about my project soon enough since I'd like to document it digitally but for now its nearly 3 am so yeah

Thank you so much for the ask I've been wanting to blubber about my favorite subject for some time just didn't have the opportunity :]

This is merely a summary of what little knowledge I hold, I encourage you to look into it and maybe start one of your own.

Also if I didn't get the question right correct me please

Top 10 Internet spec evo projects go

1 Serina: a natural history of the world of birds https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/home

2 hamster’s paradise (here on tumblr!) https://www.tumblr.com/tribbetherium

3 the Speculative Dinosaur project (alas, only locatable on the speculative evolution fandom wiki) Projecthttps://speculativeevolution.fandom.com/wiki/Speculative_Dinosaur_Project

4 the birgworld project (also on tumblr!) https://iguanodont.tumblr.com

5 exobiotica (again! Can be found on tumblr!) https://exobiotica.tumblr.com

6 the sea of polinices (warning: you may die from bafflement) https://www.deviantart.com/doublejota

7 Snaiad: life on another world http://www.cmkosemen.com/snaiad_web/snduterus.html

8 the Birrin Project by Alex Ries https://abiogenesis.artstation.com/albums/738860

9 the realistic pokemon of RJ Palmer https://www.rj-palmer.com/realistic-pokemon

10 The project that you have yet to create! 😄😄😄

Please note that these are most DEFINITELY not ranked; I personally love them all, but you may rank them if you wish. (But only if you are a cold-hearted person with no soul).

…BUT if you twist my arm, I would say Serina, Hamster’s paradise and the birgworld project are the best for OCs and cool storylines on the level of individuals, whereas Snaiad and Birrin are more into generation-spanning, historical sagas. However, all have plenty of detail in regard to biology and evolutionary history.